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Investment consultancy Redington has continued its push into the defined contribution market with the hire of a specialist from rival Willis Towers Watson that marks the first appointment made by its new DC head.

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Redington is an investment consultant to pension funds and other long-term saving institutions

Jinesh Patel, who spent six years at Willis Towers Watson as a DC consultant, has joined Redington as vice president of its DC and financial well-being consulting practice, according to a statement from the firm on April 12.

The firm, which in March named Mitesh Sheth as its chief executive, has earmarked the UK’s DC market as a growth area. While defined benefit schemes in the UK are in decline, DC pensions – largely helped by the roll-out of auto-enrolment – are growing in size and number.

According to Spence Johnson’s 2015 report on the UK’s DC market, membership of workplace schemes in the private sector stands at 40% of the workforce and the firm predicts assets will treble from their current level of £300 billion to £928 billion by 2025.

Fearn, who joined Redington from Barclays’ corporate and employer solutions team, said in the statement: “Since Redington was formed 10 years ago, the pensions landscape has evolved beyond recognition – with more employees reliant on DC schemes to pay for their retirement.”

Patel, who provided DC consultancy to several FTSE 100 businesses while at Willis Towers Watson, added in the statement: “Changes to pensions have left many individuals concerned about their retirement. Finding the right solution to ensure they have sufficient savings to retire is fundamental to work we are doing with our DC proposition.”

In October, Redington, whose assets under advice for retained clients stood at £83 billion, said almost 175,000 people invest in Redington-advised portfolios. The firm also said in its annual accounts for the year ended April 30, 2015 that developing a new DC business line was among its main objectives.

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Willis Towers Watson declined to comment. In January 2015 the firm, whose investment practice has more than $2 trillion of assets under advice and management, launched a DC master trust designed to give schemes the opportunity to pool their assets at a lower cost than being run separately.

On March 18 Redington announced it had promoted its head of strategy, Sheth, to chief executive after its co-founders Rob Gardner and Dawid Konotey-Ahulu decided to focus more on the firm’s clients.